Daniel Westling was born and raised in Ockelbo, a small town in Gästrikland.
His mother works at the local post office and his father is somekind of countyworker(not sure how to translate that :P). Daniel has two sisters and lived in a red house... very idyllic =)
Daniel W has a more "normal" life and uppbringing than the rich and poshy Daniel Collert

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__________________Life is like a box of chocolates... you'll never know what you're gonna get

Originally posted by King Christian@Oct 11th, 2003 - 1:32 pmIn that Helene, perhaps you are sadly mis-informed?
... I have been reliably informed from a number of swedish sources, that one swedish mile is 10 km.&nbsp;

I thought you meant American miles... Or... I don&#39;t know what I thought. Just got confused I guess.

yeap, she did =)
True, in swedish the word hållning has different meanings. But its not very common to use the word "hållning" to describe an attiude. Its more common to use the word "attityd" or maybe "åsikt"...

and at last: I must say I agree with you Lena. We cannot judge Svante, or anyone else for that matter&#33;, based on a picture. I´m sure he´s a nice guy but my guess is that he, and many others in Victorias "circle" are quite snobbish.
But hey, who wouldn´t be...?&#33;

__________________Life is like a box of chocolates... you'll never know what you're gonna get

I dont think Daniel doesent understand english I haven`t met one young person from sweden that doesent speak english, however often they have an accent or is not 100% fluent.

So when there are complaints on Daniels english (I wonder, has anyone ever heared him say a singel word in english?) I suspect that the problem is that he is not as fluent as say Victoria is and as it would be recquired of a prince consort.

All kids ofcourse have it in school, personally I had english for nine years.

However Daniel would not be the first person with languagetrouble in royal circles:
Prince Henrik is constantly beeing critesized for his danish with a very strong french accent.
I have read that Maximas dutch is not perfect.
Mary only spoke ONE language before she married Frederik, and Daniel speaks Swedish and an unknown amount of English.
Letizia has been working on improving her English
MM spoke very good English to begin with, but it has gotten more british.
Silvia still has an accent when speaking swedish, and a small accent when speaking english

Daniel surely knows english. I´m also sure he can read simple books in english, maybe he don´t understand every word, but at least the sense. Probably he can communicate with people, who ask him for the way or whatever. But I guess, when they talk about Daniel´s poor english, they mean, that he´s not fluent, doesn´t know too many words, makes grammar mistakes, and that he can´t express himself in english the way he does in swedish.
Daniel had only a "2" after his last year on high school (compareable to a "D" or maybe "D+") on his report card. So it seems he isn´t a person, who can learn a language(s) easily...or maybe he was really lazy at school (he has hinted that)...or maybe he had the wrong teacher. Anyway I´m quite sure, that it´s true, that his english isn´t the best...but there´s always the chance to improve, isn´t it? (should maybe do the same ...maybe I would get the title "princess" for that)

... does this exam establish who can go to university or not ?
... does everybody at school have to take this exam, regardless of whether they want to go to university or not ?

no. Its nothing like that. everyone who finished Gymnasiet can go on to the university. This test just makes it easier to get in to the most popular courses.
Because if a course is very popular only the ones with very good grades or result at this test gets a place.
F.ex I didn´t take this test, and I´ve stuied two terms at the university. The only thing you have to, is to have graduated from gymnasiet

GrandDuchess
... does this exam establish who can go to university or not ?
... does everybody at school have to take this exam, regardless of whether they want to go to university or not ?

.... did Daniel really want to go to university, or did he "throw it - the exam" ?

Högskoleprovet is voluntary! As I said in my post, when you apply to college or university - you do it on the basis of your final grades in high school, points from college or university or högskoleprovet. The test will increase your chances of getting into a specific programme or course if you get a good result on it. Admissions to college and university have different groups where they take people from - there are procentages on how many people they accept from every group. So you apply in the group "high school grades" "college or university points" and "högskoleprovet".